


Metsänpeitto

by Elleth



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Disappearances, Finnish Mythology & Folklore, M/M, Second Adventure Speculation, forests that probably want to eat you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-15 08:49:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16059665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elleth/pseuds/Elleth
Summary: As the team journeys into the far north of Finland for a mission of special importance, a mistake of Emil's could prove fatal for them all.





	Metsänpeitto

**Author's Note:**

  * For [straightforwardly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/straightforwardly/gifts).



Emil tossed his straw - the short one, of course - into the campfire and looked for a suitable spot to keep nightwatch, while Sigrun grinned and crawled into her tent, the sharp noise of her sleeping bag's zipper the last thing before quiet settled.

With the rest of the team in bed, Emil was alone with the forest at dusk, standing tall and black with firs and birches. The soft sound of waves on the nearby lakeshore and Mikkel's even, sonorous snoring were the only things breaking the silence. Even so it was a little eerily quiet; even the mosquitos that made everyone's life a hell by day seemed to have settled, perhaps thanks to the bunches of dried herbs Lalli had kept tossing into the fire before he'd left to scout out the next day's route. Emil rested his gun against his chosen lookout rock, stretched and leaned back. The soft, wet moss soaked straight through his pants. Between that, and the damp air that crept up from forests and lakes in the evenings, Emil was shivering before too long even near the fire. 

He closed his eyes briefly to remind himself that even this was almost nothing. After the ordeal he had survived with Lalli the winter before, he liked to think he had learned to deal with far worse circumstances. Compared to his trek to the coast, this was downright luxury, and being out in the Finnish forest made Lalli of all people almost absurdly cheerful for his standards. He still seemed grumpy and withdrawn compared to someone like Sigrun, but Emil supposed that home turf, his familiar gods all around them, and having solid ground under his feet again were all pluses as far as Lalli was concerned.

And he couldn't forget about the reason for their journey on the ancient northward roads - almost reclaimed by the forest, but still easier to travel on than the pathless wilderness. He had no idea where they were now, only that they had left Kajaani, the northernmost cleansed Finnish area, over a week ago. Out in the forest, even the days blurred. It was hard to believe that a month and a half or so ago they had still been in Keuruu, making ready under Onni's sharp, sad eyes, and they were facing probably that same amount of time on the road again. 

Since leaving Onni behind at midsummer - a relief - boat travel across the lakes that comprised Saimaa and then longer up the river channels made Emil properly appreciate how big and wild the country was. It terrified him and made him feel small if he thought too much about it, but it explained more about Lalli than he could put into words, like the fearlessness and utter resolve - Emil had learned _sisu_ as the word for it - he held about most everything. This was what allowed him to throw himself in a giant's way and scout out unknown territory on his own. In a forest this immense, where you could wander lost without meeting another soul in weeks, fear was a very bad idea and would probably kill you if it had the chance. 

It ran counter to all Emil had ever learned: Fear was what kept you alive. But that had been Sweden. His old life. He was unlikely to ever go back again completely, not now that the bond between him and Lalli kept... not fading as they had both imagined, but growing stronger, to the point where being far from the other was not a comfort, but an aching absence that made him almost glad for Onni sending them all out here together. 

Emil's eyes started slipping closed. The fire blurred between his lashes, changing back into the one over half a year ago, and the smell of woodsmoke took him back so entirely that for a moment he felt he was standing for the wake at Tuuri's pyre again. But it didn't matter so much now. Knowing that they were on a mission to rescue Tuuri out of the underworld made him feel, absurdly, somewhat better, for all that Onni had all but forced them to go and occasionally appeared in their camp as if by magic - no, _by magic_ \- to make certain they were still on the same northward path to… Tuonela. He shuddered to even think the word. The Land of the Dead. 

They needed to find the entrance, after which Onni would properly rejoin them to get them across the River of the Dead past the blind Ferry Girl, the Swan of the Underworld, and even more monsters. It probably meant they were going to die down there, trying to return Tuuri to life - somehow. 

If they didn't die in the forest first. 

Emil's eyes snapped back open and he breathed down the sudden panicked urge to scream. The forest above him, not quite in full darkness even this late in the evening, seemed to lean down to look at him, peering through the few sharp pinprick stars like eyes that judged the sudden dryness of his mouth and the sweat on his palms. The fact that his body was panicking along with his mind made him want to laugh a little hysterically. 

He didn't, although it took him a long moment of making himself aware of his surroundings and grounding himself - campfire, fragrant smoke, wet butt, Mikkel's snoring, the sound of gentle waves, the wind in the trees and blueberry bushes. It was tempting to simply run, too - but Lalli had told him and everyone else to stay on the path or at the campsite no matter what happened, because three or four steps off it in unfamiliar territory meant that you were already lost, especially in flat, heavily-wooded terrain where sound didn't carry far. That didn't even factor in any trolls that might have strayed out there, or beasts that inhabited the forest, or immune bears, wolves, lynx, wolverines, even moose or wild boars, or the unpredictable swamps they sometimes had to cross if the bridges on their way were impassable, or...

Before he could remind himself of any more dangers, Emil took another deep breath and thought of snakes, blueberries and the other stories Lalli had told him over time. It calmed him, but he also had to admit to himself that this was stupid, and he hated it. His left eye twitched. Just to reassure himself that there was nothing that merited the panic, he looked around the campsite and the forest's edge. That he felt so watched was another trick of his overwrought mind. He probably needed the sleep worse than Sigrun, and once he had calmed down he'd wake her and switch places. They were going to be on the road for a month or so yet; there were plenty of nights for him to keep guard in all the way, especially once it got properly dark again. 

He hated that prospect too, but anything was going to be better than this night. 

He also hated the silhouette in between the trees, a silhouette that didn't even seem to be there at all, a trick of forest, night-clouds and firelight. It didn't move while his eyes were on it, nor while his hand groped through the moss to close around a fist-sized rock.

"Onni?" His voice sounded like that of a little boy. Emil hated that, too, but he couldn't even swallow around the lump in his throat. The figure made no answer. It didn't look like Onni, either. He threw his rock with force, but the figure vanished before the stone made impact, and it rolled away soundlessly across the mossy forest floor. Gone. No trace. 

_Good_ , Emil thought almost petulantly. It probably meant the thing hadn't been real, not a weirdly human-looking troll or anything like it, just his brain playing tricks on him. If anything, once he managed to calm his ragged breathing and the panic faded, it seemed to have become even quieter, the stillness of the deep night. 

Emil, too, lapsed into quiet, staring at the same spot until his eyes started watering, but nothing else showed. Eventually the tension drained from his bones and he relaxed, even though the adrenaline still running through him kept him awake enough that he wasn't sure he'd be able to sleep. He stoked the fire and did not wake Sigrun, not even when it was past the appointed time. But even as Lalli's fuzzy-cloaked silhouette returned from the direction of the lakeshore, coming through a patch of purple-flowered fireweed, Emil still jumped at the sudden apparition. By then, the dusky sky had turned into something more resembling proper daylight than the liminal late-summer twilight that qualified as night up here, and Lalli had a bluebill duck dangling from his hand, lifting it in triumph as he spotted Emil. A small smile flitted over his tired features, little more than a quick quirk of the mouth. 

"Breakfast?" Emil said in Finnish. With much more time on their hands than usual, he and Lalli used their daily walking for language lessons, and eventually even Emil began to remember words - especially if they came with Lalli bringing food. 

"Sotkajärvi," Lalli said, pointing at the water. Emil knew the word for 'lake' already, the rest became clear when Lalli held up the duck again. 

"Sotka," Emil repeated, grinning as the last of his fears dissipated into a moment's silliness. "Breakfast!"

Lalli snorted quietly and made a beeline for Emil to drop down next to him. Over time, Lalli's favourite greeting had become an affectionate headbutt that never failed to turn Emil's insides to butterflies every time it happened, before Lalli would take Emil's face into his hands and kiss him. The first time it had happened - in view of the rest of the crew at that - Emil was fairly sure he had heard Mikkel grumble that he owed Sigrun an entire cask of mead upon their return to civilization. 

Finally, with Lalli there, leaden tiredness dropped onto Emil like a stone. He shifted so Lalli could lean on his shoulder, and it took him only moments to fall asleep into their shared dreamspace where they could speak freely. Lalli was already waiting for him, perched on top of the same rock that was Emil's lookout post. 

"Did anything happen last night? It's as if you're scared. You jumped when I came back. You never do that."

"Nothing," Emil said with a sigh. Of course Lalli had noticed. "I was just tired and thought there was a shadow watching me, sometime at night. Just my brain playing tricks on me," he added, seeing Lalli's frown. "There was nothing there, or if there was, it went away when I threw a rock at -" 

Lalli hissed. "Stupid!" He slipped down from the rock and peered intently at Emil's face. "You don't look sick. Good. Show me where." 

Emil rose. By now he'd become used to the unsettling realization that whenever he slept he wasn't in his body any longer - his soul had a haven in the dream sea, or, when he shared a dream with Lalli, he usually found himself in the same surroundings that he'd fallen asleep in, and he could move around freely. It sounded like nothing so much as a ghost story, so he preferred to not think about it too much, but now he took Lalli's clammy hand in his own and showed him to the forest's edge on the other side of camp, finding even the mossy rock he'd thrown in a patch of finger-long fir saplings. 

"Here," he said, and watched, as Lalli, murmuring, dropped into a crouch to inspect the ground more closely. Whatever he found or did not find, he didn't say, but he heaved a sigh of relief. "Lucky," he said, climbing back to his feet to kiss Emil again, briefly. "But stupid. Don't throw rocks, it's rude to the Forest Powers, whether or not they ever show themselves." 

"Ah - what?" 

"The Forest Powers. Forest people - spirits and gods that live here. You're not a mage, you shouldn't be able to see them, unless they want you to. If they show themselves they want help fixing something; you don't have to be scared. Just don't be rude!" 

"Fixing something? I didn't break anything! I've been careful, like you told me to be! And I didn't even hit whatever it was!" 

"Not that," Lalli said. "Maybe I didn't notice we made camp in their path, or something like that. Maybe you got scared of the forest. They hate that. But you won't know beforehand. You wait for them to speak with you first, and then you show respect. Don't make them angry, that's not good." 

Emil tried hard to not look guilty. He had been getting scared, and couldn't help avoid Lalli's pointed look. "I'm okay though, right? If I'd made them angry…" 

"... they'd strike you with the forest's wrath, probably," Lalli said. "There are more powers in nature that will do this if you anger them - the dead, the forest, and the water are worst. They can make you sick, or worse. I know what to do - a little, for some. Gr- _someone_ taught me, but I never used it. Onni is a better healer, and he does protective magic. People usually came to him if it happened." 

"He'll come to us again, right? If I get sick?" 

"Yes. But you're okay. Silly." Lalli's voice dropped into something fond, softer and more reassured, close to a purr, perhaps even the low laughter Lalli sometimes allowed himself. "No one needs to be told that throwing rocks is rude. Only silly Swedes." 

Emil swallowed his protests. He didn't want to spoil the moment as they wandered back to their resting spot. Sigrun was crawling out of her tent, hollering to the morning, and to the others to wake them up as Emil and Lalli stood and watched the sleepy heads of Reynir, Kitty and Mikkel emerge. Nor did he want to take their argument - or anything from last night - back into waking. 

"So what did I see?" 

Lalli shrugged. " Probably just a shadow. But don't throw any more rocks." 

* * *

All things considered, Emil felt as cheerful as Sigrun seemed as she tore into Mikkel's breakfast of real, actual bread and real, actual butter, herbs that Lalli had picked around the campsite, and leftover mushrooms from the evening meal. Compared to some other things, it was a feast, and the duck roasting over the fire only added to the impression. With Lalli falling asleep on Emil's shoulder the second time that morning, and the daylight bright around them, the forest warmly lit and cheerful with birdsong, it was hard to allow any more meaning to his night terrors - just a shadow, he knew that now, and the subconscious part that still couldn't shed the impression that something was wrong was subdued. Almost. 

But Lalli had let him off with a slap on the wrist. If anything bad were to happen, he wouldn't keep it a secret. 

He went back to eating and chatting to the rest of them - even Reynir had learned enough Norwegian to be somewhat intelligible, and they all finished off their food with relish. Even though Emil felt a little drowsy then, Sigrun seemed to notice none of it, or simply didn't care. In moments like this, Emil really wished they still had the tank so he - and Lalli - could rest while someone else drove. Even with all their expedition budget - the little wage from Torbjörn, and the remaining shared proceeds from the book sales - pooled, they couldn't afford a car, a horse- or hound-drawn carriage, or even a sled. Mikkel had even grumbled wistfully about the wheelbarrow they'd used on the last leg of the road out of Denmark.

"Shall we?" Sigrun asked as she wiped out her bowl with a piece of bread and stuffed it into her mouth. "Get Scoutyface ready and up for leading the way. Weather's good, I want a ten, maybe a fifteen today. Kilometers, I mean." Sigrun clapped her hands. "Pack up, equipment check in thirty. Chop chop, we've got a Fuzzy-Head to rescue; we don't want to need rescuing ourselves first!"

While Reynir and Mikkel cleared up the campsite, Sigrun crouched down with Lalli and his map - the only original, which out here even he carried, the rest of them had painstakingly accurate traced copies made by the Keuruu skalds' office who wanted Tuuri back no less than the rest of them - and marked down the campsites for the day. Lalli and Sigrun mostly got by with gestures and pointing. Lalli had found a stream of fresh water in the forest, and a number of different camp spots, depending on how far they made it during the day. With the day being warm and mostly cloudless, there was little chance of troll or beast activity, and it looked, for all Emil could tell, like one of their easier treks so far. 

It was, too, turning east behind the lake to avoid a larger town ahead in favour of a scatter of small villages and suitable, troll-less campgrounds. 

It was, until Sigrun vanished in the early afternoon. 

Sigrun shed her pack, shouldered her gun and went into the thicket left of the road. She'd called a halt thinking she had seen something move between the trees, but no one had actually spotted her moving far into the forest once she'd made it past the first few trees. The rest of them were standing on the broken remains of an ancient asphalt road, clustering around Reynir for his protection, pale behind his mask. 

They waited, and time and forest stretched quiet around them. Emil wasn't sure how much had passed - no more than an hour, but much longer than it would have taken Sigrun to check the forest and return.

The sun slipped behind a sudden cloud like an omen. 

Mikkel set his hands around his mouth and shouted Sigrun's name, louder several times, and after a few calls, Reynir and Emil joined in. Lalli rocked on his heels and kept quiet, but he looked concerned, even afraid, and eventually motioned for them to be silent. "Trolls can hear. We can't hear shouting back. If." 

_If._

They all knew, by now, about the nature of Finnish forests, and before they had even set out, Lalli had told them all the basic rules he used daily as a scout - survival, edible matter and water in the forest in addition to the emergency rations they carried on their belts, and contingency plans for separations or becoming lost. Sound didn't carry very far in between the trees, and it was easy to lose sight of the path and feel lost even if one weren't. Even though troll-hunting had given Sigrun plenty of survival skills, that was in a different part of the Known World. 

Lalli probably was the only one Emil trusted to make it into the forest off the beaten path and then back in one piece. He did now, peering between the trees where Sigrun had vanished, examining the ground for footsteps and turning back to the group to shake his head. Mikkel nodded gravely in answer, and pulled out his own map, tapping on the nearest campsite. 

"There is no point in searching without getting lost ourselves, and we…" Mikkel cleared his throat. "... cannot keep sitting here like troll snacks. We'll continue until the next campsite. If Sigrun is still out there, she has her map and her compass; she'll catch up. If she is not back by tomorrow morning, we'll backtrack and look for her." 

He did not look happy before his face closed off into its unreadable, unrattled mask, but Emil remembered the situation that Sigrun had used those words in, and it was enough for tears to prick his eyes. He also remembered all that had come after, the separation and the giant. 

He looked around at his companions. Reynir stood, smiling uncertainly and clutching Kitty, who seemed calm despite her wide-eyed looks around. Lalli trotted back to the rest of the group. Mikkel bent to pick up Sigrun's pack and began moving again. 

"We stay together. She is perhaps the most accomplished short of Lalli in wilderness survival. She will be there," he rumbled in Emil's direction, but it failed to sound comforting, and Mikkel's blank face didn't help the impression any, especially as he barked, just once, " _Move!_ " 

To Emil's ears, it sounded like Mikkel didn't believe his own words. He'd never talked to Emil like that before, barely ever raised his voice at all, and when he did, it made Emil jump without fail. Leaving Sigrun behind without a proper search - with Mikkel now acting team leader - felt like guaranteed misery for all of them, no matter how you turned it, and Mikkel knew it. 

_We can't just abandon her!_ Emil wanted to shout, but he walked on, still fighting his tears, after Mikkel gave him a cold look when Emil so much as opened his mouth. He could not shed the feeling that Sigrun's disappearance was his fault, rooted in the night before. Even so, there was nothing except to keep moving, and he wasn't sure he could look at Mikkel right now. Emil let himself fall back behind Reynir. 

Sigrun wouldn't catch up, he was sure of it. Only Lalli slipped into place beside him to bring up the rear of the group, and patted Emil's shoulder lightly in an attempt at comfort. 

Emil couldn't help looking back, perhaps expecting to see the shadow again, but it was only the road running empty and broken into the distance until it, too, was lost between the trees. 

* * *

The area that Lalli had chosen for them was a bare, rocky lake-shore littered with boulders and sparse young trees. Dragonflies catching the sunlight raced in glittering clouds along the water's edge and low over the surface. Even with worry for Sigrun heavy on his mind, Emil nearly lost himself watching them for a moment. In better circumstances he'd have been happy to call the place enchanting, but Sigrun had not caught up. The rest of them were busying themselves around the spot; Emil had gone to gather what little firewood he could find, but he kept glancing at the rest of them every now and then. Mikkel was pitching his tent one moment. 

The next moment he was not. 

It was Reynir's shout and a babble of anxious Icelandic sent Lalli running to the sagged tent-side, and it seemed like a deja-vu was playing out in front of Emil's eyes. Like before, Lalli was scanning the never-far-away treeline and the wide-open water glittering under the late sun, and searched the ground for any tracks that Mikkel might have left. He was deathly white, with an expression equal parts forbidding and worse - terrified. Emil's admiration for the lake and the dragonflies gave way to fear.

Lalli once again shook his head. 

Reynir was still babbling and gesticulating wildly, asking over again where Mikkel was, now in Norwegian, too. While Lalli went to clap a hand over Reynir's mouth and hiss something about 'angry water', - the water's wrath, Emil supposed - as he stared Reynir into submission, Emil circled around the tent in the shadow of a large boulder and tried to force down the rising panic. 

They were now two team-members short - their senior team members, who had carried most of their weight, literally, in Mikkel's case - and they were gone without a trace. Whatever had taken them, and Emil was becoming more and more certain that it _was_ his fault, because of the damned rock he had thrown - and it wasn't friendly, not to any of them. It knew what it was doing to have taken their leader first, and then their second. If it worked its way through the team by rank, the dreadful certainty that he would be next settled like a rock in his stomach. 

It could take a seasoned warrior like Sigrun and a massive man like Mikkel without a sound. 

There was no way to shoot a shadow. He would be next. And he would be no match. 

Faced with that, Emil very badly wished for Sigrun and Mikkel to be back. Sigrun's cheerful challenge to the world at large, and Mikkel's bear hugs would at least be reassuring even if they did not help save him. He still wasn't sick, apart from the fatigue of a mostly sleepless night and the hammering of his heart in his ears. His nose was stuffy, but that came from the tears he'd kept swallowing on the march. 

As if by themselves, Emil's feet carried him to the forest's edge. He dropped the firewood, and his knees gave up their support right where the rocks gave way to vegetation - white-tufted sedges, grass and young birches rustling in a breath of wind. He couldn't help feeling watched, but in the spidery tree-limbs and the patterns of light and shadow, nothing visible revealed itself to him. 

"Look," Emil managed, staring into the forest, and his small voice grew steadily louder, "I know I was an idiot to get scared, and it was wrong to throw a rock at - whatever you were! But that was me! It was me, not Sigrun or Mikkel! Maybe she just got lost, but I really don't think so, and that's definitely not what happened to Mik-"

A hand seized him by the shoulder and pulled. Emil fell backwards onto the rocks and stifled a scream half out of his mouth when Lalli's face swam into focus above him, and both of Lalli's spindly hands touched his cheeks. The blur at the edges of things around them told Emil that he was asleep while Lalli kept his touch unbroken. 

"Quiet," he hissed. "Do you want to make the forest angrier with you? You will if you yell at it. It won't help. If I let go, you won't keep screaming." 

"Okay," Emil agreed hoarsely. "Lalli, it's going to - I'll be gone next. Maybe it'll be over then - you're a mage, and Reynir is one, too. Maybe they'll leave you alone. Y-you should go. Try to bring him back to Kajaani so he can go home. Or… go on? If you think you can do it alone." 

"Maybe not, but… we have to go on," Lalli agreed. His voice sounded just as hoarse as Emil's now, and he wasn't even making the effort to lift it above his usual whisper. Every muscle in him was tense, from the fingertips pressing into Emil's cheeks to his trembling shoulders. "I'm sorry…" 

"No! Okay? No. You don't have to apologize. It's my fault. Again." Emil swallowed hard and reached up for Lalli to bring their faces together. The angle was too awkward for a kiss, and Lalli's hair and hood fell over their faces, but the closeness of that shared moment was the missing piece to recollecting something vaguely like composure. "Do you know what… happened to them? Are they…"

"Maybe," Lalli answered. In the dim between them Emil saw the reflection of light in his eyes vanish as Lalli closed them. "Maybe not. It depends on what happened. I can't say yet. I know what it wasn't - not trolls or beasts, and not Ajattara, not Näkki - I'd have found traces, or their bodies. But the forest kills in a thousand ways and disappears people in more. I will keep looking. It might be - "

Lalli's head snapped up then. A distant sound, almost a wail, rang through the campsite, and a second later Emil was free to open his eyes and sit up while Lalli sped away. Emil followed, almost stumbling in his haste.

Kitty sat near the tents at the foot of a young tree heavy with unripe berries that had only just started reddening, and she was screaming in alarm like Emil had heard only once, when the ghosts that had attacked them that night in Copenhagen, a drawn-out, high-pitched 'mrrrrriiii' that wouldn't stop until Emil arrived at the scene. 

There was no sign of Reynir, and all of Emil's carefully gathered composure vanished like the sun slipping behind the treeline at last. As if on cue, the same chill began to rise from forest and water that had made him shiver the night before. The dragonflies settled, and silence fell. 

They did not even have a fire now, and neither Mikkel nor Reynir had finished building their tents before they had vanished. If they did not properly set up camp quickly, they'd have a rough, cool night ahead of them if either of them would be allowed to see it. 

Emil felt sick to his stomach as he hammered one after the other of the tent pegs that had been Mikkel's unfinished work into the ground, and couldn't help glancing over his shoulder every other second for Lalli, who was kneeling under Kitty's tree with his eyes closed, his forehead against the silver bark. It seemed, almost, like he had found some solution, or was looking for one rather than the guesswork he'd shared with Emil. Kitty herself had found a sturdy branch to sit on, and seemed calmer again, although her fur remained on end. From the corner of Emil's eye it made her look like a strange bird perched up there. 

Lalli still was there, Emil reassured himself, having fastened all of the loose pegs. His hands shook. The tarpaulin still hung limp on the tent's other side, but going there would mean losing sight of Lalli even if just for the moment it would take him to peer around the tent's edge. Bile rose bitter and stinging into Emil's mouth, and he spat it out. 

Lalli was a mage. This was his home country. Its forces wouldn't hurt him. He would know how to bring back the others if they were - if they were still alive. 

The reassurance rang hollow in Emil's mind and heart.

A final glimpse, a deep breath, and he ducked around the tent, forcing the last few pegs into cracks in the rocky ground as quickly as he dared, rose, and stepped back into the open line of sight.

Kitty was perched in the same branch she'd been in before, but apart from her, Emil was alone. 

* * *

The tears came when the deep twilight settled onto the forest. At first Emil had been frantic, turning in circles to find Lalli, checking the recently-built tent whether Lalli had slipped inside unnoticed. Nothing, nothing, and nothing again. 

He cleared the rocks away at the foot of Kitty's tree where Lalli had last been kneeling, and spread his sleeping-bag there, hoping that somehow, perhaps, it might bring him closer to a solution, but most of all - if he was going to die last and alone except for Kitty, he wanted it to be where he had last seen Lalli. The rustling of the leaves above him could have been soothing, but Emil was past caring. He didn't deserve that; instead he pressed his wet face into the fabric of his sleeping bag and began to apologize. 

To Sigrun, for leaving her. To Mikkel, for never quite warming to him as much as to some of the others, to Reynir for his unfair treatment of him during the first expedition, to Tuuri for not coming to rescue her, and to Onni for taking who was left of his family and leaving him entirely alone. To Kitty, who had curled against his stomach and was watching him with luminescent eyes in the semi-dark, for bringing her out here. 

To Lalli, wordlessly, over and over again until even Lalli's name gave way to sobs that shook his entire body. The forest stood quiet and dark and watchful, a constant, heavy presence behind Emil. 

Eventually, even the tears stopped, until he simply lay waiting in the dark. 

At last he slept. 

* * *

Something was crushing the breath from his lungs - stale forest air that lay on his tongue like it hadn't moved since the world began and the forest had already been there. He tried to sit up, but his muscles refused to obey. The quiet pressed into his ears so completely that he could not even hear the beating of his heart or the sound of his blood.

Then, a voice. No thunderclap could have been louder in the utter quiet of the forest that surrounded them, high spruces rising into a grey murk of twilight. 

"Emil?!" 

"LALLI? Lalli! Where are you?!"

"I am here. I am right where you are - you are not alone, Emil. You are _not_ alone. We are lost, but you can find us. Listen to me now. You can make this right. You have to, or we will all die. I will tell you how."

"What is this, Lalli, what is going on? Are you alive?!" 

"Emil. You need to listen. Are you listening?" 

"I can't breathe, Lalli. How are we talking?" 

"As usual. This is a dream. My dream. You found me dreaming. Are you listening?" 

"I-I don't know. Yes." 

Lalli huffed. "Say you're listening." 

"I'm listening." 

"Good." Lalli sounded relieved. "What happened is this: You angered the forest. Perhaps it means you can make it right. The forest took us and covered us - _metsänpeitto_ , that is what it is called. We are lost in this place, on the other side. We can't move as long as you are near, or find each other, or a way out. You slept next to me and could not see me. I could feel you through the mark of me left in the world - there is a rock that was not there before - Reynir's is the rowan you are under. I do not know where Mikkel and Sigrun are, but I can tell you how to free us. You have to bind the forest that bound us and demand us back." 

"I - what?" 

"I'll tell you how. Then I need you to wake up and remember it. _Listen_." 

* * *

Emil stared at his handiwork with a frown, the red string from Lalli's pack waving in an air current from the tops of two bound-together birch saplings over what looked like a worn-out track through the heavy underbrush, made by so many feet, none of them human. He almost expected to see the shadow from before again, but if it was there, watching, it chose not to show itself in the early daylight sending thin fingers through the trees. 

For good measure, he dropped the handful of silver coins - an offering to appease the Forest Powers, Lalli had explained; red thread and silver were things they loved - into an anthill, watching as the fat red ants crawled all over them as he murmured a few words of offering, apology, and appeasement. 

One more thing remained. 

_"If you do not release my own, then I will not release your own,"_ Emil shouted.

The forest stayed quiet, only the ordinary morning sounds and the sun through the high trees. It seemed, almost, that Emil's voice fell and shattered at his feet. 

_"If you do not release my own, then I will not release your own,"_ Emil repeated. 

Was it his imagination, or was the wind from the lake picking up, and was there a voice on it? Or was he going mad? He remembered what Lalli had said as he had explained the binding ritual - it might be three days until the forest returned them. If they did not come back then, their disappearances were due to something else entirely, he needed to cut the bindings, and run. 

If he stayed then, or left the forest bound longer, he would anger a spirit beyond repair. He would, Lalli had said, be driven mad.

 _"If you do not release my own, then I will not release your own,"_ Emil said the third time, now barely a whisper. He had promised Lalli that he would bring them back - but this was not his forest, these were not his gods, spirits and forces, if there were any for him in the first place. He was as out of place here as elsewhere. That he was here, having to do Finnish magic in the first place was testament to _how_ out of place he was. 

None of this would have needed to happen if he weren't such an idiot. 

A branch cracked behind him, the rustle of light footfalls.

He would have recognized those steps anywhere, even before Lalli's arms went tight around his chest from behind, and Lalli pressed the full length of his skinny body against Emil's back. 

Shouting came from the campsite, Reynir and Mikkel's voices, joined by Sigrun's louder one. 

"I'll tell them to be quiet," Emil muttered, and slipping his hand around Lalli's, holding his puukko, they cut the trees free, turning back to the campsite and the open sunlight.

**Author's Note:**

> I owe a wealth of gratitude to Laufey for her eternal patience with my questions about all things Finnish. All remaining liberties or inaccuracies are mine. Many thanks also to Kira for being a fantastic support and cheerleader, and to her and Yuuago for fabulous betas! Thank you all so much!
> 
>  _Metsänpeitto_ translates to "forest cover", a Finnish phenomenon that may occur after angering the forest or its powers, in which a lost person (or animal) finds themselves trapped in a liminal version of the forest they were lost in, without the ability to interact with others or find their way out unless they know tricks to break the enchantments (wearing clothes inside out, looking through their legs, etc.), are a mage, or are released by an outsider through a ritual. The one I described here is loaned from [Peasants, Pilgrims and Sacred Promises: Ritual and the Supernatural in Orthodox Karelian Folk Religion](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2714252-peasants-pilgrims-and-sacred-promises) by Laura Stark.


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